Soaring Bitcoin prices liquidate $272M, pushes Tether USDT supply above 90M

Cryptoc traders experienced liquidations worth more than $260 million during the last 24 hours due to the surging value of digital asset prices.

Data from CoinGlass reveals that most of these liquidated positions, valued at around $170 million, belonged to shorts—traders who speculated on price declines. This marks the fourth-largest sum of short liquidations recorded in a single day within the last four months.

Bitcoin (BTC) traders bore the brunt of the losses. Short traders lost almost $92 million as the digital asset’s value briefly surpassed $44,000 following the continued optimism surrounding a possible spot exchange-traded fund (ETF) approval in the U.S. The flagship asset’s value has since retraced to $43,719 as of press time, according to CryptoSlate’s data.

Traders betting against Ethereum (ETH) rise also experienced approximately $35 million in liquidations. During the reporting period, ETH’s price touched a new yearly high above $2250, marking its highest level since Terra’s shock collapse last year.

Other traders holding short positions against alternative cryptocurrencies like Solana, XRP, Dogecoin, and ORDI also recorded substantial losses during the reporting period.

Across exchanges, Binance and OKX recorded the most significant liquidations, as short traders lost almost $110 million on these platforms.

Tether spikes above 90B

The rallying crypto market also resulted in Tether’s USDT stablecoin supply breaching a new all-time high of 90 billion, according to CryptoSlate’s data.

In November, USDT’s circulating supply increased by 4.5 billion amid the growing market optimism for a spot ETF. CryptoSlate Insight revealed a substantial 96% correlation between the circulating supply of USDT and Bitcoin’s price movement throughout the period.

Observers have suggested that this influence on Bitcoin’s price may become more significant as USDT supply grows.

USDT’s increasing supply also indicates an improving liquidity for the crypto market as more capital enters the ecosystem. In a recent note to investors, Markus Thielen, the head of research at Matrixport, said:

“The most important chart and signal is the daily minting from Tether, which shows that nearly $7 billion is being moved into crypto. This flow is front-running the Bitcoin spot ETF approval and driving crypto prices higher.”